My Harley-Davidson motorbike was stolen last September while I was in a cinema in Greenwich, London. The same day, I called my insurer, Hastings Direct, to report the theft. I gave them all the information they wanted, which was a lot. The agent kept asking me for more information and refused to take my report of the theft unless I gave them this. I complained that this was not needed to identify me, as I had already given my name, address, policy number, date of birth, and several other pieces of information.

Hastings Direct claimed I also had to tell them the annual mileage as it was necessary for data protection. I stated that these were not necessary and that they were misrepresenting the Data Protection Act. I felt they were trying to find inconsistencies so they wouldn't have to pay me for the theft. They then refused to take the report of the theft at all and hung up.

I wrote to Hastings Direct and informed them of the theft, again, and sent them all the information I had that they would need in order to investigate. This included the bike details, policy number, my address, the time of the theft and the crime reference number. The letter was signed for but Hastings did not respond. Then I wrote and complained about their non-response in a letter in November, also received via signed delivery. The company did not respond. It is now February, almost five months after my bike was stolen and the insurance company has received these two letters, but done nothing. Can you help? RW,London

The treatment you have received from Hastings Direct has been poor, and in fairness to the company, it immediately accepted this, and is taking steps to put it right. It says an outsourced company takes claims calls made outside its business hours, and it was a failure of this firm that partially caused the problem.

It can't explain why it didn't receive your letters, and an investigation into both is underway. Quite simply, it hadn't responded to your claim/letter, because it was unaware of them, it said. A spokeswoman accepts, having listened to your call, that the company had more than enough information to call you back to complete your claim, but it failed to do so. She says the reason that staff ask questions about your circumstances is that the out-of-hours teams don't have full access to files.

"We recognise that first and foremost we need to register and process the claim. To facilitate this process, one of our customer services managers will be contacting RW as soon as possible and handling all aspects of his claim personally until it is resolved."

The claim has now been paid (£8,080) and Hastings says it has given you £500 on top to compensate for the inconvenience. The managing director of insurer services, Michael Lee, will be writing to you with a formal apology. It also says that anyone who has phoned a claim through and has not received any paperwork in the post or an email to confirm the claim within 48 hours, should contact their insurance provider again.

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